John W. Redmann | October 31, 2025 | Personal Injury
When someone is hurt, two legal theories often come up in personal injury cases: negligence and strict liability. They both create a path for an injured person to recover money for their losses, but they do it in different ways. Here’s how they differ and what you have to prove.
What Is Negligence?
Negligence usually involves carelessness. Someone is negligent when they fail to take proper care to avoid injuring other people.
To win a negligence claim, an injured person generally must prove four elements:
- Duty: The defendant had a legal duty to the plaintiff to act with reasonable care.
- Breach of duty: The defendant failed to exercise reasonable care.
- Causation: The breach was the proximate and direct cause of the plaintiff’s injury.
- Damages: The plaintiff suffered actual harm.
A person’s action (or inaction) is often judged against what an ordinary, hypothetical person would do in the same situation. This is called the reasonable person standard.
What Is Strict Liability?
Strict liability focuses on the nature of the activity or product. The defendant’s level of care is typically not taken into consideration. In strict liability cases, the injured person normally does not have to prove that the defendant was careless. Instead, they must only demonstrate that the activity or product caused the injury and falls within a strict liability category recognized by law.
Common Examples of Negligence and Strict Liability Cases
Most personal injury cases are based on negligence, including:
There are a few types of strict liability cases. One of the most well-known examples is a case involving a dangerous or defective product.
Under product liability law, manufacturers and sellers can be held strictly liable for injuries caused by inadequate warning or instruction, design defects, or manufacturing defects. To be held responsible for an injury, the product must have been unreasonably dangerous when used as intended or in a reasonably foreseeable way.
Some types of cases can involve either negligence or strict liability, depending on the facts. For example, dog owners in Louisiana can be held strictly liable for a dog bite if they could have prevented the injury and the dog posed an unreasonable risk of harm.
Even if the owner can’t be held strictly liable, they may still be liable for damages if they were negligent. For instance, an owner may be negligent if they fail to keep their dog under control on a leash while walking in a park.
Defenses in Negligence and Strict Liability Cases
In negligence cases, defendants may raise multiple defenses. They may claim they did not owe the plaintiff a duty of care, did not violate their duty, or that their breach didn’t actually cause the harm.
The most common defense involves comparative negligence. The details of this rule vary from state to state, but in general, the compensation an injured person can recover may be reduced by the percentage of their own fault. The rules for comparative negligence are complicated in Louisiana, so it’s important to consult with an attorney about how it might affect your case.
Even in strict liability, defenses exist. In a defective product case, a defendant may argue product misuse, alteration, assumption of risk, or that a safer alternative design wasn’t feasible. In a dog bite case, the dog owner may claim the dog was provoked or that they could not have prevented the harm.
Contact Our Metairie Personal Injury Lawyers at Law Office of John W. Redmann, L.L.C. for a Free Consultation
If you were injured in an accident in Metairie or Gretna, Louisiana, and need legal help, contact our personal injury attorneys at The Law Office of John W. Redmann, LLC, to schedule a free case review today.
We serve Jefferson Parish County and Louisiana’s surrounding Areas
The Law Office of John W. Redmann, LLC – Metairie, LA Office
2901 N Causeway Blvd, STE 202, Metairie, LA, 70002
(504) 500-5000
The Law Office of John W. Redmann, LLC – Gretna, LA Office
1101 Westbank Expy, Gretna, LA, 70053
(504) 384-8053
